


A Kind Truth

by Zaxal



Series: Kinktober 2018 [2]
Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Begging, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaxal/pseuds/Zaxal
Summary: For Kinktober Day 2: Begging.





	A Kind Truth

It had been a rough week. One of the roughest they’d had so far — and that was saying something, considering Chicago — but they’d gotten through it. Not unharmed, unscathed; not _fine_ , but they’d gotten through it.

At first, they’d both tried to act as if nothing was wrong.

It worked in some capacity, the two of them teasing, elbowing and nudging one another lightly, laughing.

But night came, and it brought with it wretched memories and an ache that Tomas hadn’t known was echoed in his partner until he heard the bed near to his rattling, the frame scraping against the wall.

That was how he ended up here, his body pressed against Marcus’s as it trembled, somehow unearthly cold despite the blankets piled on top of them and Tomas trying to heat him up. “You could have said something,” Tomas murmured into his hair, arms tightening around him.

“You should be asleep, Tomas,” Marcus said. Somehow, his voice remained even, calm, chiding as if he wasn’t the one shaking.

“So should you,” Tomas said easily. After a moment of consideration, he slid one of his legs over Marcus’s, pulling him deeper into his embrace. The boxers he’d worn to bed caught against the fabric of the sweatpants he’d made Marcus put on.

“I’ll be fine. This is-”

“If you say it is nothing, I won’t believe you.” He frowned, nosing into Marcus’s hair. Tomas contemplated dragging him to the shower, turning it on boiling hot, and chasing the chills away with it, but the cold afterward wouldn’t be worth the short-term payoff. “Was it the demon?”

Marcus laughed dryly. “It’s always a demon. They leave bits of themselves.” His breathing hitched. “They scar everyone they touch.”

Tomas wondered at his tone, if it was meant to be yet another warning about the rough life of an exorcist, another warning to go home to Chicago and forget the demons howling at the gate. He wondered, too, if Marcus realized how many scars must be left on him, how many demons had sunk their claws into him and refused to let go without taking a part of him with them.

“You wear your scars like badges of honor.”

Marcus buried his head in the thin motel pillow, muffling a noise.

“They were earned saving lives.”

“Saving _souls_ ,” Marcus corrected miserably.

“You have saved more of either than you think.”

“No, Tomas-”

“Casey, yes. Also: Katherine, Henry. Angela.”

“Tomas.”

It was a delicate cruelty. “Yes, him too.”

“Tomas,” Marcus breathed, his voice caught in the shiver of his chest. “Please.”

“You did,” he said. “You took a lustful, lying priest — one who didn’t realize how deep his lies ran — and you saved him.”

“Please,” Marcus repeated, nearly sobbing, and Tomas held him all the tighter, closing his eyes and praying as if it could link their souls together and make Marcus understand how much good he had done, the light he carried with him that led wayward souls to hope. “Please, Tomas, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“You know perfectly well what y- you’re doing,” he growled.

“I’m comforting my partner.”

“You’re lying,” Marcus hissed.

“No.”

The simple denial was enough to make Marcus shake harder, breaths coming fast and hard. Tomas curled his arm and leg tighter around him, feeling the cold dissipate though Marcus continued to struggle with whatever Tomas couldn’t touch. “Please,” he begged, “please.”

“I will only tell you the truth,” Tomas whispered into his skin. He wanted the air between them gone, their bodies sealed tightly together. He wanted to feel everything Marcus had been hiding, every pain he’d thought he deserved. He wanted- God, help him, he wanted more than that. He wanted to bind his soul to this man who, in the midst of his own suffering, had insisted that Tomas should go back to his own bed and go to sleep.

Marcus’s hand curled suddenly around his. The harshness of his grip did nothing to deter Tomas. He could not fear Marcus.

“The truth can be kind.”

“Please,” Marcus whimpered.

“Please what?”

“Forgive me, forgive me.”

“What is there to forgive?”

Marcus shuddered, “I got- fucking hard just having you here.”

If it was meant to drive Tomas away, it didn’t work. Instead, he sounded mildly disappointed and asked, “Not because of the nice things I’ve said?”

Marcus shuddered, laughed, desperate. “I imagine it _helped_.”

“Good.”

“Not good. Tomas, this, this is the demon.”

“No,” Tomas said with a sudden certainty that he hadn’t known until that moment. “This,” he squeezed Marcus’s hand. “This is holy.”

Marcus made a sound as if Tomas had struck him a physical blow. “ _Tomas_!”

Tomas swallowed thickly around his doubts, his worries, his fears of becoming the person he’d sworn to leave behind in Chicago. He spoke from the heart God gave him: “In His infinite love and wisdom, He gave me to you. He led you to my arms, and me to your bed. Everything was orchestrated for us to be just where we are.”

Marcus sobbed incoherent pleas, shaking apart. Even pressed as close as they were, Tomas had no way of knowing if Marcus used his other hand or if he simply came from Tomas answering his cries for help with the love God had given him.

Just before he drifted off, Marcus spoke again, so soft it could have been a dream: “Please don’t leave.”

“Never,” Tomas promised fiercely, breathing it into his skin as if he could brand the truth of it on Marcus’s soul.


End file.
